Banks and Consumers

BANKS AND CONSUMERS
3 Summary
“Only happy customers are loyal customers.”
This is the guiding principle to which the
private commercial banks subscribe in their
comprehensive consumer policy scheme. It
is an approach they have refined further in
response to the financial crisis in order to
regain customer trust lost during the crisis
and remove identified shortcomings.
The key components of the scheme are,
and remain, consumer education, consumer
information, transparency in contracts and
the offer of out-of-court dispute resolution.
To further build trust, the scheme has been
supplemented in particular by investor
protection guidelines which set new
standards for product information. With their
comprehensive consumer policy scheme,
the private commercial banks are thus also
responding to the political call for “preventive”
or “integrated” consumer protection in the
field of financial services.
Consumers and banks alike rely on
an appropriate, uniform EU-wide legal
framework – only once it is in place can a
single European financial market unfold its
full potential. Attempts to wall off national
markets should therefore be firmly opposed.
At the same time, both national and European
legislators should take into account the
experience and needs of market participants
as far as possible and use their expertise in
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